Service quality, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in fast-food restaurants

1 Introduction

Customers' evaluations of the service quality are critical to service firms that aim to improve their marketing strategies ([16] Cronin and Taylor, 1992; [28] Jain and Gupta, 2004; [43] Ofir and Simonson, 2001). Firms that provide superior service quality also have a more satisfied customer base ([1] Aaker and Jacobson, 1994; [23] Gilbert et al. , 2004; [22] Gilbert and Veloutsou, 2006). Customer satisfaction is viewed as influencing repurchase intentions and behavior, which, in turn, leads to an organization's future revenue and profits. As a result of the direct link with profits, the issue of service quality and customer satisfaction has become a focus of the hospitality industries. More and more companies are compelled to assess and improve their service quality in an effort to attract customers ([22] Gilbert and Veloutsou, 2006).

There are some academic studies to address the service quality and customer satisfaction in fast-food restaurants (FFRs) ([10] Brady et al. , 2001; [23] Gilbert et al. , 2004; [31] Kara et al. , 1995; [37] Lee and Ulgado, 1997; [52] Qin and Prybutok, 2008); however, most of the studies are limited to the relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality. Some other potential determinants of customer satisfaction such as food quality and perceived value are ignored.

Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, very few studies have examined the recovery ability of FFRs, much less of its effect on the perceived service quality or customer satisfaction. Understanding the interplay between the recovery mechanism and customer behavioral intentions is important, because better recoveries increase the customer's propensity to return to the same service provider whereas ineffective service recovery may reinforce the customer's dissatisfaction with the service ([25] Harris et al. , 2006). However, service recovery is not considered in the well-known SERVPERF model even though some findings suggest that recovery dominates formation of customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions ([57] Spreng et al. , 1995).

This study contributes to the investigation of the above issues. First, we seek to develop a FFR success model by examining the key dimensions of service quality in the fast food industry. Specifically, another potential dimension, recovery, is incorporated into the SERVPERF instrument. After establishing sufficient reliability and validity of this instrument, we proceed with the...